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can ebay see my ip if i dont login to my acc?
 

i remember i saw somewhere in here said that ebay wont see my ip until i login a acc. is it still true?

Yes it is true for eb and pp.

However I would like to know if the tracking cookies 'kick in' when you open your browser or is it when you actually log in. Also, will the cookies 'kick in' through other programs that access the internet - as in for me I use a program called 'showmyip' and other little programs like that.

Thank you.

All website sees your IP the moment you establish a connection to it. It's just a matter of fact whether if they log it or not.

I would also like the answer for Alps' question as well.

Good question. I would lean towards eb logging your IP based on the cookies so they get your IP without you actually logging on.. I know for a fact that opening emails from ebay will send out an IP beacon.

Not if you download them from your mail server. Disconnect your PC from the network before you open those emails.

I think you can also get around the beacon if you use gmail and you DO NOT click on "display images"

I think that displaying images might give you away. A website I have shows the ip of any photo that gets loaded. So the first thing you see when you get to eBay is the big logo and the ip and operating system of the viewer is logged among other things. I also think there's something hokey when I get an email from them saying a watched item is about to end. If I click on the link they give me there's all kinds of code that goes with that link so I think it knows where I came from even though I'm not logged in. I think there's way more information available to them and I'm sure they have analysis type programs if not real people looking for clues. Just my paranoid guesses...

Gmail isn't the only email service that blocks images, AOL works fine as well.